A Man for All Seasons (1966 film)

"I am commanded by the king to be brief, and since I am the king's obedient subject, brief I will be. I die His Majesty's good servant, but God's first."

"[About his decision to not give away his daughter Meg to William Roper] See here Will. Two years ago you were a loyal Churchman. Now you have fallen in with the Lutherans on account of being persuaded by their logic. I can only hope that when your head stops spinning it is affixed as God intended."

"It profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world ... but for Wales?"

"Well, as a spaniel is to water so is a man to his own self. I will not give in because I oppose it—I do- not my pride, not my spleen, nor any of my appetites, but I do– I!"

"When statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their own public duties they lead their country by a short route to chaos."

"What is an oath then but words we say to God?"

"Since the Court has determined to condemn me, God knoweth how, I will now discharge my mind concerning the indictment and the King's title. The indictment is grounded in an act of Parliament which is directly repugnant to the law of God, and his Holy Church, the Supreme Government of which no temporal person may by any law presume to take upon him. This was granted by the mouth of our Saviour, Christ himself, to Saint Peter and the Bishops of Rome whilst He lived and was personally present here on earth. It is, therefore, insufficient in law to charge any Christian to obey it. And more to this, the immunity of the Church is promised both in Magna Carta and in the king's own coronation oath. — [Cromwell: Now we plainly see you are malicious!] — Not so. I am the king's true subject, and I pray for him and all the realm. I do none harm. I say none harm. I think none harm. And if this be not enough to keep a man alive, then in good faith, I long not to live. Nevertheless, it is not for the Supremacy that you have sought my blood, but because I would not bend to the marriage!!"

"I know a man who wants to change his woman."

"If the King destroys a man, that's proof to the King that it must have been a bad man."

"I have no wife! Catherine is not my Queen! No priest can make her so!"

"[last lines of film] Thomas More's head stood on Traitor's Gate for a month until his daughter Meg claimed it in order to give her father a proper funeral. Thomas Cromwell was beheaded five years after More was. Archbishop Cranmer was burned at the stake. The Duke of Norfolk was slated for execution but the King died of syphilis the night before the order was scheduled to be signed. Richard Rich became Lord Chancellor of England and died in his bed."